looking to share our electricity free homestead in SW washington...

So were not completely electricity free currently, but once we have a community started thats the way we will go, so we are wanting to attract others who are interested in living without electricity from the beginning. We are close though, we only have a 40 watt solar panel currently. We burn candles mostly, sometimes turn on our single light. We would like to have our own bee hives to make all our own candles with. We have raw 20 acres with 2 creeks, one year round. Its a beautiful spot out in rural western WA, about an hour north of Portland. We are inviting anyone who is slightly interested to come out for a visit. We are friendly and love to have visitors. We are ideally looking for 10-20 people to share this space with, 4-6 families. Our goals involve growing/wild harvesting all of our own food, having our only power source be human power, having group meals daily, building all the homes very simple and from materials found on the property, developing a self sustaining food growing system that involves lots of perennials and wild foods, and foods that reseed themselves well, offering donation based workshops on all sorts of things to the greater community, and growing deep bonds with the surrounding towns. This area is not currently very "permie" minded, but we hope to bring new ideas and offer them to those who are interested free of charge. We like volunteering and helping others and hope to form some sort of work co-op where we can help the local community out on projects that require physical labor or a crafty skill set. Currently we have a 60' greenhouse, a tipi and a mangled half standing yurt. We have some fruit trees planted and are accumulating local seeds for starting more fruit/nut trees. We have a few grapes, many strawberries, asparagus, rhubarb, artichoke and many many herbs that are all coming in now or soon. We drink the creek through a berkey. Come hang out if you're in the area. come live here if you love it.

I would love to come and visit. I'm currently in Olympia, but am very familiar with the Toutle River Valley and absolutely love it out there. Would be great to come check out your place and see what you have going on. It sounds like we share a very similar philosophy, as well as congruent future goals. Let me know when would be a good time to swing on by for a tour.

hey brandon
So great to connect! I'm available for a visit really any time. I'm pretty much there always. Right now its pretty chilly and wet, we live in the greenhouse right now so it warms up during the day, mornings and evenings are usually in the 40's though. So what i'm trying to say is, ya, come on down, but schedule your visit according to how warm you prefer to stay You are welcome to stay the night, you can pitch a tent or a bed in the greenhouse, its 60' so theres plenty of space right now (we had tomatoes and peppers in there last year, but theres just some chickens in a chicken tractor in a small portion of the space now). Or a day visit is fine too if you prefer, since you aren't too far. My partner will be home on the 4th, so if you would like to meet both of us come after that. If it makes more sense for you to come before that, that's totally fine too. I enjoy having visitors any time, we don't get too much company out where we are. If you'd like to watch the weather and plan for a dry day that may be more enjoyable. A lot of the land is extra saturated, so bring rubber boots! My email is jaime.wise@hotmail.com. We can talk more details though email once you have an idea of when you can come

Jamie, dig your thoughts! Curious, how do you do internet if your not down with electricity?

lorance romero wrote:Jamie, dig your thoughts! Curious, how do you do internet if your not down with electricity?

That's exactly why we have the 40 watt solar system. We charge our hotspot and cell phones with it so we can look for like-minded community from out here in the boonies. That is why, even though we could easily function day to day without electricity, and many days we do, we have some temporarily while we establish a community. I just want everyone that's Interested to know that the intention is for zero electricity as soon as we are more established and sustaining ourselves a little more with what we can provide on the land. I would LoVE to do away with the solar system right now, but we would be lonely

Would you like to stop by lorance?

J, thanks for the reply.

Do you mind expanding on why you don't want electricity on your home?  
I have no problem w/ E, just how it's made.  Bad E: coal, nat gas, oil;  Good E: Solar, Hydro, human power

I'd love to visit but I live in Central New Mexico ... maybe in my travels this summer?

Thanks for the words.

-l

Also looking to join/visit your intentional community.  We are in Texas currently but looking to be in the northwest by June.

Hi Jaime,

I new to the forum and saw your invitation.  If you are around Mar. 8-10th, we might be able to swing by for a visit.  We're a family of six (mom + adult kids + 11 yr. old), and five of us will be down your way  scouting properties.  Let me know if you're around and we can talk more if you like.

Thanks!

Marlowe

hi marlowe,

we will definitely be around the area. We have a few local errands to run but we can easily find a good time somewhere in your dates. email me for more specifics jaime.wise at hotmail.com

lorance romero wrote:J, thanks for the reply.

Do you mind expanding on why you don't want electricity on your home?  
I have no problem w/ E, just how it's made.  Bad E: coal, nat gas, oil;  Good E: Solar, Hydro, human power

I'd love to visit but I live in Central New Mexico ... maybe in my travels this summer?

Thanks for the words.

-l

thanks for the question Lorance. I don't want electricity around because I feel that it takes away from my experience directly with life and nature. I think that life is more fulfilling, lively, exciting, intuitive and joyful when I am encouraged by my surroundings to live in the present moment and learn how to operate myself in an intuitive way. Relying on electronics to do work for me takes away from my direct experience of myself and the world, and i feel more fulfilled when I am experiencing life fully. Mostly i want to raise children in this sort of very intuitive space, so that they develop their own deeply intuitive powers...and of course do not want to spend all their time looking at screens like so many of us seem to. Also, I think "good" bad" when talking of energy manufacturing is definitely on a gray scale and based on personal perception. There are many disadvantages to the mining of the materials involved in solar panels, have you ever done any research on that topic? can be quite persuasive against their use once you have an idea of the "cost". Some people may feel that the solid jobs provided by the coal/oil companies makes it worth the damage to the earth. Some materials in solar panels are only mined in much less developed countries and results in something that many call "slave labor", plus tons of mining of the earth. Which is worse, coal or solar? depends on what you read you who you ask. My point is that unless you are directly involved with the entire process, i.e. hauling and chopping your own fire wood to cook with, then its very hard to know who all and what all is affected by your choices. I want to be as aware as possible as all the affects of my choices, and i would like to be in community with people who feel the same. Human generated electricity works  sometimes, but then what device do you use to convert it and where do all those materials come from? Repurposing things does help, such as building a wind turbine from scraps, i would just prefer to learn to live without. I do not want to be dependent on it for a healthy life.

HOpe you can make it out sometime! just let me know.